Just because you got injured in an accident involving another party, or taking place on another party’s property, does not necessarily mean you can sue them over it. That is, for a personal injury claim to work, a plaintiff must satisfy a burden of proof and demonstrate that the targeted defendant behaved or acted negligently. Without further introduction, please continue reading to learn how to prove someone else’s negligence caused your injury and how one of the experienced Bergen County personal injury attorneys at McNerney & McAuliffe can help you establish this argument in your upcoming claim proceedings.
What are the elements of negligence in personal injury law?
Simply put, four essential elements make up what it means to be negligent under personal injury law: duty, breach, causation, and damages. More detailed descriptions of these elements, using the example of a slip and fall injury, read as follows:
- Duty: the defendant must have had a duty of care to ensure your safety.
- They must ensure their property is safe before welcoming visitors onto it.
- Breach: the defendant must have breached this duty by acting recklessly or carelessly.
- They must have failed to identify and rectify hazards on their property promptly.
- Causation: the defendant’s breach must have directly led to your incurring an injury.
- The hazard on their property must have been unavoidable, and you slipped and fell.
- Damages: your incurred injury must have left you to deal with economic and non-economic damages.
- Your slip and fall injury caused you to incur medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, etc.
How do I prove someone else’s negligence caused my injury?
Needless to say, you must prove all four of these elements as the plaintiff of a personal injury claim if you wish to score a successful outcome. Below are the most effective types of evidence for proving negligence, again, using the example of a slip and fall injury:
- Photographs of the accident site and your visible bodily injuries at the scene.
- The hazard on the defendant’s property that you slipped and fell over.
- Videos of your accident event playing out in real time.
- A property owner’s security camera footage and eyewitnesses’ cell phone videos.
- Written or oral statements regarding the accident and your injuries.
- Eyewitnesses who saw your accident and medical experts who understand your injury’s impact.
- Medical bills and medical records associated with the accident and your injuries.
- Bills that reflect the same date as the accident event and records of your medical diagnosis.
- Financial documents associated with your economic damages.
- Your past pay stubs and testimony from your employer regarding your inability to return to work.
- Written or oral statements regarding your non-economic damages.
- Loved ones explaining how you have suffered from anxiety, depression, etc., since your accident.
These pieces of proof are a good place to start for your legal argument. To conclude, there is no need to go through the important step of presenting your case alone. Please seek the support and assistance of one of the skilled Bergen County personal injury attorneys. Contact McNerney & McAuliffe today.